The Border Regional Library Association (B.R.L.A.) promotes libraries

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 and librarianship in the tri-border region of West Texas

West Texas

West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....

, Southern New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico. The non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 was founded in 1966 and, as of 2009, has over 100 members including libraries, librarians, trustees, and library paraprofessionals. B.R.L.A. events and awards include an annual continuing education workshop and banquet, Librarian and Staff Member of the Year awards and annual scholarship awards. The organization is best known for its annual Southwest Book Awards for noteworthy books about the Southwest

Southwestern United States

The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...

 published in any genre and geared toward any audience. Past winners include James Carlos Blake, Charles Bowden

Charles Bowden

Charles Bowden is an American non-fiction author, journalist, and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He is a former writer for the Tucson Citizen and often writes about the American Southwest...

, Dennis DeConcini

Dennis DeConcini

Dennis Webster DeConcini is a former Democratic U.S. Senator from Arizona. Son of former Arizona Supreme Court Judge Evo Anton DeConcini, he represented Arizona in the United States Senate from 1977 until 1995....

, Tomie dePaola

Tomie dePaola

Thomas Anthony "Tomie A." dePaola , is an American author and illustrator of over 200 children's books, including Caldecott Honor book Strega Nona and Newbery Honor book 26 Fairmount Avenue. DePaola was awarded the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal in 2011.-Biography:DePaola was born in Meriden,...

, Arturo Islas

Arturo Islas

Arturo Islas , a native of El Paso, Texas, was a professor of English and a novelist, writing about the experience of Chicano cultural duality....

, Neil Miller

Neil Miller (writer)

Neil Miller is an American journalist and nonfiction writer, best known for his books on LGBT history and culture.- Life :Miller was born in Kingston, New York, in 1945 and graduated from Kingston High School and Brown University...

, Pat Mora

Pat Mora

Pat Mora is a Chicana author known primarily for her poetry and children's books.- Writer's Life and Work:Pat Mora is a writer and cultural preservationist who seeks to document the lives of Mexican Americans and U.S. Latinas and Latinos through varying genres such as children's books, poetry, and...

, Benjamin Alire Saenz

Benjamin Alire Saenz

Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an award-winning American poet, novelist and writer of children's books.-Life:He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico....

, Rubén Salazar

Ruben Salazar

Rubén Salazar was a Mexican-American journalist killed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War on August 29, 1970 in East Los Angeles, California. During the 1970s, his killing was often cited as a symbol of unjust treatment of...

, Sergio Troncoso

Sergio Troncoso

Sergio Troncoso is an American author of short stories and novels.Troncoso, the son of Mexican immigrants, was born in El Paso, Texas. He grew up in Ysleta, an unincorporated neighborhood or colonia, on the east side of El Paso...

, and Luis Alberto Urrea

Luís Alberto Urrea

Luís Alberto Urrea is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.-Life:Urrea is the son of a Mexican father and an American mother...

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